And once again I am back from a trip to the USA. Like previous time I had the idea to publish a column anyway, but last week it was more tempting to visit the Olympic Mountains instead of sitting at a laptop and writing something for DotNETForDevices. I guess that is the advantage of having an own website, even though I made an obligation to myself to publish at least a weekly column, nobody got hurt when not doing so. Well, the number of visitors is dropping so I do hurt myself a bit, although not financially since this website is not generating money anyway. Yet there should be enough to write about, with the release of Visual Studio 2005 around the corner, with new Windows Mobile 5.0 devices finally appearing on the market and even with just day to day things that are going on. I even started using a brand new Smartphone running Windows Mobile 5.0 this week. Right now this is a loaner device, but after a few days of using it, it already got promoted to being my primary cell phone. I am totally getting used by it and honestly I don’t know how I could ever live without one. Things I like in particular are the ability to easily check email, great working synchronization with my desktop using Bluetooth, and of course the possibility to make actual phone calls (just joking here). I also had the privilege of trying a Pocket PC Phone Edition running Windows Mobile 5.0 as well for a few weeks. Even though I like the larger screen of that device, the smaller size of the Smartphone makes that a winner for me so far. Since I am using a Pocket PC as well, I will probably still end up carrying different devices with me. The only thing I am looking for right now is a small Bluetooth enabled keyboard that can connect with my Pocket PC and even with my Smartphone. This would be great for traveling, especially the way I travel (mostly in coach). There is simply not enough room to easily work on a laptop during a long flight and the batteries of my laptop last only for a good hour or so. Using a Pocket PC to write documents sounds more appealing. Probably not for creating a great layout of a document, but it would be sufficient for a lot of writing, especially with batteries working way longer than one single hour. This is something not being published about too much, but I definitely would use my Pocket PC for that purpose if I would only have a proper keyboard that easily connects to it. These might even exist without me knowing about it, so it will be time for a little investigation in that area. There would not even be more excuses not to write a weekly column for DotNETForDevices. Of course I can always come up with other excuses, like an incredible amount of Webcasts that are coming up. Unofficially yet, but we will run a series of Webcasts around the introduction of Visual Studio 2005 in November, of which I will probably present three or four. This is going to be a lot of fun, especially since it will no longer be necessary to run Visual Studio in a Virtual PC. So far that has been my policy, having only one production machine. All beta software has to run inside a Virtual PC, but after it is released, Visual Studio 2005 will get a prominent place on my production machine itself. It will give a whole lot of new possibilities, especially with those devices that are now with me in my room. I can even download sample applications to devices and run them from the device. Something I have not done so far with Visual Studio 2005. It is almost shocking. Not needing an emulator to actually run applications. I guess the first attempt to do so will be on November 1st during one of the MSDN Webcasts. Just check my blog the upcoming days / weeks for more details about that. Until that time I will try to no longer find excuses not to update DotNETForDevices for longer periods. After all, with new products available there will be lots of things to write about. Not only in columns, but also in the blog and in full blown articles. If I only did not have a regular 40 hour working week at a real company as well. That would really allow for many more publications. Ah well, I just keep on dreaming until next week.
Maarten Struys |
